The discussion is closed now. However, if you think something should have been said during the ODE, you are welcome to add it to one the discussion threads.

Welcome to the first DESIRE Online Discussion Event for project managers. The discussion is open from 17 to 19 September 2012 and is moderated by Marisa Hernandez from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.

The themes to be discussed during the events:

Day 1
The first day will focus on the various communication channels project managers usually use to find out about results from science education projects.

Day 2
On the second day, participants will discuss their experience in communication and disseminating results of their projects.

Day 3
The third day will aim at identifying best practices in disseminating STEM project results to target audiences.

Marisa Hernandez is a research assistant and member of the Executive Board of the Centre for Research in Science and Mathematics Education (CRECIM) of the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona, Spain. She has a BA in Physics and PhD in Science Education.

With a staff of 9 full-time employees, 5 part-time secondary school teachers, and 3 PhD students, CRECIM manages a number of national projects and local initiatives on science and technology education. They cover a broad range of topics, from digital classrooms in science lessons (ADIGIC) and technology enhanced science learning for children in hospital (TEACH); to school-university (REVIR) and school-industry (Prat de la Riba) collaboration.

Marisa Hernandez I also consider that we should choose carefully the channel and the format to disseminate our project results to different stakeholders.

I recall now attending a conference about knowledge transfer, where there was a policy-maker from the European Commission. She told the audience, mainly constituted by researchers and project managers, that one common mistake concerning dissemination of results is to send them (policy-makers) large reports and mainly at the end of the project instead of policy briefings or similar documents which have been revised and agreed with policy-makers during the lifetime of the project.

Regarding teachers, I agree with Maite that teachers are interested in knowing ways to effectively implement in class the products (e.g. educational materials) resulting from a project. However, if the resulting products have been pilot tested in class and there exist research results about how the products work in real settings and how to use them quite efficiently, then I wonder what it is a good format to disseminate these products to other teachers. You need to include specific materials that have been developed within the project accompanied by recommendations on how to use them, possible difficulties that teachers may encounter, the aims of these materials, etc. Are there formats that work well for you to communicate your results to teachers?

Maite Debry When communicating your project to teachers, I believe it is important to explain concretely the contributions he/she can give and how the tools/resources/method can practically be impemented in class for example (incl. time needed, target age group, ...)

An important information to provide is also the link that can be done with the curriculum.